


a full measure of loyalty

by Tyleet



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Tyleet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hope I may in safety promise to give no less than a full measure of loyalty to any man who gives me his,” Laurence says, all earnest blue eyes and proffered hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a full measure of loyalty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [giraffles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giraffles/gifts).



> You will notice that a whole lot of the dialogue comes straight from the books. No disrespect is meant--I'm just trying to give Tharkay's perspective on canon events. :)
> 
> Please do not copy or repost my work on any other site, even if it is credited under my name. I do not give permission to have my work hosted on any site except AO3.

Tharkay discovers John Granby is an invert halfway across the desert simply by observation. He becomes suspicious over the usual things: Granby’s glances linger just slightly too long, his touch is a trifle too impersonal, he holds himself apart with more care than any common-born soldier should.  
  
He confirms his guess and makes a new discovery when he watches Granby steal his captain’s coat and place careful, serviceable stitches into the ill-used garment. Granby’s own attire is not half so neat, but his hands are gentle on Captain Laurence’s green coat, smoothing out the fabric with far more care than it deserves. Tharkay had known after two weeks in their company that Laurence’s first lieutenant would gladly die for him; this is something else.

 

Granby catches Tharkay watching him, and almost scowls before catching himself, giving Tharkay a distant nod at the last moment. A man used to guarding secrets—or at least this particular secret. It’s plain that Laurence is incapable of keeping anything of real import secret, tethered as he is to several tonnes of childlike honesty, which leaves Tharkay in no doubt of Granby’s circumstances. He would feel sorry for the man, could he afford it.

 

As it is, Tharkay gives Granby a smile he knows is tinged with irony, and allows himself to briefly enjoy the narrowed look he gets in return. He will tell no one, of course—he has enjoyed that particular sin before, although his love has always been reserved for women—but it cannot hurt to remind one of Laurence’s men to be on his guard. He would rather be known to be dangerous than dismissed as a servant.

 

Granby watches him, after that. Tharkay doesn’t mind. Captain Laurence is watching him, too, albeit for different reasons.

 

*  
  
In Istanbul, he learns that Sara is engaged to be married. He knows—he is sure she still loves him, and it takes all his hard-earned discipline not to plan their escape, another proposal. If she has made her choice, he cannot take it from her—but it stings, regardless. He returns to the palace to bring Laurence word of his invitation, exhausted and met with blue-eyed suspicion. While they wait for night to fall, he retreats to the pavilion for a few hours of sleep.

 

When he wakes, Lieutenant Granby is watching him with a queer expression from the pavilion door, plainly troubled. And if Tharkay were not wounded despite himself, his chest tight with the familiar ache of jealousy and loss, he might have done nothing more than raise his eyebrows and roll onto his feet.  

 

As it is, he speaks before he fully wakes, his voice rough with sleep. “Careful, Mr. Granby, or I might make my own guess as to your interest.”    
  
Granby colors at once, and opens his mouth to speak—but then little Allen comes in behind him, and Tharkay will never know what he intended to say.  
  
“I only meant to see if you were well,” Granby says with an edge to his voice, his face still flushed. “You looked pale, when you returned. But I see you are well, indeed.”  
  
Tharkay has no time to reply; Granby turns and leaves the pavilion at once.

 

*

 

The same night that Tharkay loses Sara forever, Laurence asks for his loyalty. “I hope I may in safety promise to give no less than full measure of loyalty to any man who gives me his,” Laurence says, all earnest blue eyes and offered hand, the picture of an English gentleman, exactly like all the other English gentlemen who have used and discarded him the way they might use and discard a common beast. “I think I would be sorrier to lose you than I yet know,” Laurence adds softly, and perhaps it is because of Sara and the loss he is only beginning to know, but Tharkay takes his hand.  
  
“Well,” he says lightly, making the best of his own uncertainty, “I am set in my ways; but as you are willing to take my word, Captain, I suppose I should be churlish to refuse to offer it.”  
  
Laurence smiles, but his eyes are serious, and his grip is reassuringly strong. And Tharkay meant only to agree so far as it went—sure that Laurence would fail him as all of Britain has failed him. He thinks of the strength of Laurence’s hand for a long time after that night.  
  
When he is scored with a hot brand during their escape, Laurence is there, one strong shoulder under his, helping him limp to safety. Granby takes Tharkay’s other side, and it appears neither of them gave a thought to leaving him behind. That, as much as anything else, explains his own foolishness later.

 

*  
  
He leaves them in Dresden, and Laurence is plainly reluctant to let him go. “I will not press you to stay, in our current circumstances,” he says, “though I am sorry to lose you against a future need; and I cannot at the moment reward you as your pains have deserved.”

 

“Let us defer it,” Tharkay suggests, and offers Laurence his hand. “Who knows? We may meet again; the world is not after all so very large a place.”

 

Laurence took it, and the notion Tharkay has been quietly turning over in his mind sharpens to a point with Laurence’s grip. “I hope we shall,” Laurence tells him with a faint smile, “and that I may be of use to you in turn, someday.”  
  
He does not bid Granby farewell, but he knows Granby watches him go.

 

He is not entirely surprised, upon his return with the ferals, to meet Granby’s eyes and find a silent question there, communicated solely via glances. Tharkay smiles, and follows Granby to the nearest dark corner.

 

*

Granby is a pleasant enough distraction, as these things go—rough and to-the-point, all calloused hands and choked-off gasps, a strong and silent body in the dark. It’s simpler than with women—no chance of developing an undue emotional attachment, no danger of children, far less danger of irreparably damaging anyone’s reputation. Less risk all around, except for the need to steal time away from not only Laurence and Temeraire and their crew, but two armies and Iskierka.  
  
“Aren’t you forgetting the law,” Granby says in a sarcastic undertone, after looking carefully around to make certain they were still unobserved. He is gray with exhaustion and worry, but so are they all.

 

“I’ve never cared much for any authority beside myself,” Tharkay admits, and Granby rolls his eyes, making no pretense of shock. “Luckily, I’m very good at evading detection,” Tharkay finishes, and steals a final, brief kiss from Granby’s lips.  
  
But distractions cannot last for very long—that is rather the point. He could never remain in Scotland for anything less than direst need; not even the loyalty William Laurence has somehow managed to draw out of him can persuade him to stay.  
  
He bids Granby a private farewell, and finds Laurence in his chambers, a too-large dressing gown pulled around his shoulders, revealing a pale strip of collarbone. He apologizes at once for his appearance, and it occurs to Tharkay that Laurence was expecting someone else—Roland, perhaps. The flash of irritation he feels at the thought comes as a shock. He cannot be attached to Laurence—not in their positions.

“I am come to say good-bye,” Tharkay tells him, considering the grim possibility that leaving is a necessity as well as a matter of preference.

 

“Oh,” Laurence says awkwardly. “Will you—that is, if there is anything that could be improved upon—would you not stay?”

 

Tharkay assures him that there is nothing to complain of, still privately dismayed at himself. “I am not of your company. I do not care to stay only to be a translator; it is a role which must soon pall.”  
  
Laurence is plainly unhappy, but he accepts Tharkay’s abrupt explanation, and pours him a glass of port. “I will pray for your safe return,” he says, and Tharkay accepts the glass without allowing his fingers to brush Laurence’s, the old familiar ache opening up in his chest.

 

*

 

It turns out that loyalty, once given, is nearly impossible to break, even with the benefit of time and distance. He wishes this were a revelation—he wishes he would not still die for Sara Maden in a heartbeat, if she needed him. Laurence has yet to fail him; Tharkay cannot fail him either.

 

When he returns to an England under invasion, Granby is the one who brings him the news, white and miserable. Laurence has gotten himself sentenced to death, although there is little danger of the sentence being carried out any time soon.

  
“Will you go to him,” Granby asks in a low voice, close enough to Tharkay to touch but deliberately not reaching out.

 

“Yes,” Tharkay admits, and knows the word lays himself as bare as Granby was to him in the desert.  
  
“Good,” Granby says, and gives a shaking exhale, his hand finding its way to Tharkay’s forearm. “Thank you. I’ll take you to Roland—we can sort this out yet.” He begins listing off what needs to be done, rough and businesslike, but his grip does not slacken on Tharkay’s arm until Tharkay himself carefully draws back.  
  
Laurence is imprisoned in an attic, in a city under attack. The attic is not even locked, but he is sitting quietly by a window when Tharkay opens the door. He looks much worse for the year since Tharkay last saw him, hollow-eyed and thin. He gives a low sigh when he recognizes Tharkay, and follows him out of the burning city without argument.  
  
“Of course, I could never have found you,” Tharkay offers eventually, when it seems Laurence will stubbornly pretend not even friendship lies between them.  
  
Laurence is half a man without his dragon, anchorless and bewildered. But it is more than that, of course—he has lost his authority, his certainty in his country and himself. It is an innocence Tharkay never possessed to begin with.

  
“I could not,” Laurence refuses, clinging to that lost innocence. It is the beginning of what will prove to be another difficult year.

 

*

  
He does not see Granby again until the day he is taken prisoner with his dragon, and Laurence seems determined to retrieve him entirely without aid. He’s certain it’s less a sign of Laurence’s affection and more a sign of the new worth he places on his own life; Laurence’s coat is shabbier than ever, his hair unkempt, and he volunteers for missions almost certain to end in failure. Tharkay goes with him.  
  
“You are not obliged—“ Laurence tries, because he will still think about duty rather than fealty.  
  
“No,” Tharkay agrees, raising one eyebrow, and Laurence subsides unhappily.

 

Seeing Laurence in London—even this new, diminished Laurence—is like sliding back a curtain to look into his past. Laurence cannot be aware of it, but his very posture changes, turning rigid, even more guarded than before. Tharkay speaks to him in Chinese—partially for secrecy, partially to see the line of Laurence’s shoulders soften momentarily as he struggles for the right words.

 

And then they are forced into Bertram Woolvey’s home and it becomes painfully clear that an unresolved attachment lies between Laurence and the soft-voiced, proper lady of the house. Tharkay could almost find it amusing, if it were not also evident that both Edith Woolvey and her husband are as troubled by the company Laurence keeps as with his treason.  
  
Even in workman’s clothes, smudged with dirt, every line of his body signaling his discomfort, Laurence looks like he belongs in this living room. It would be all too easy to imagine him back in a blue Navy coat, this woman whose hand shakes when pouring coffee into Tharkay’s cup at his side.

  
Woolvey will come with them, jealous and afraid as he is, and Tharkay receives the dubious pleasure of watching Laurence watch Mrs. Woolvey bid her husband farewell. Underneath his usual English discomfort is real sorrow, real longing.  
  
“I beg your pardon for embroiling us so,” Laurence says, low, and Tharkay looks at him in surprise. He had thought Laurence absorbed in the clasp of the Woolveys’ hands.  
  
“In a practical sense, we could ask for nothing better,” Tharkay says. “We are not likely to be stopped in a blazoned carriage bowling away down the street in open view of everyone. Noticed, certainly, and he may find his neck in a noose for it afterwards, but that is his concern, and those who would weep for him.” He would like to say he adds the next part out of friendship and not bitterness, but he is not entirely sure himself. “Although those may be of interest to you also.”  
  
Laurence turns red before looking briefly miserable, but Tharkay cannot apologize before Woolvey comes to join them. It occurs to him on the long, silent carriage ride to Kensington that he is afraid, that he has been afraid for many hours, and that is fear is not only for Laurence.  
  
“Thank god,” Granby says when he sees them, and something tight and anxious in Tharkay’s chest eases, altogether too soon.

*  
  
He kisses Granby for the first time since his return to England that night, before their orders send them elsewhere, and Granby arches into him and gasps awkwardly against Tharkay’s mouth, mingled worry and relief making both of them clumsy.  
  
“Missed this,” Granby mutters, and Tharkay tries to kiss him quiet. A man can only take so much. “—I missed you,” Granby insists, breaking away to mouth against Tharkay’s neck.  
  
“Yes,” Tharkay agrees, helplessly, and Granby shudders.  
  
But when Tharkay lies down alone on his sleep-roll, it’s the blank devastation on Laurence’s face he can’t stop thinking about; the little gold ring clutched in Laurence’s hand.  
  
*


End file.
